This invention relates to a hockey game and, more particularly, to a game for simulating the ice hockey strategy involved in the individual competition between one attempting to shoot a puck into a goal and a defending goalie.
Various games have been developed for simulating certain aspects of the play pursued in ice hockey. In most such games a puck is propelled along a playing surface either directly by a participant attempting to score a goal or by a simulated skater mounted on a playing board and manipulatable by a participant. Similarly, the goal is protected either by an opponent directly or by simulated skaters or a goalie mounted on the board and manipulated by the opponent. Although such games have achieved substantial popularity, success or failure in the outcome of such games is determined primarily by the manual dexterity of the players. Missing are the general strategical aspects that have made ice hockey such a popular sport and the specific strategy involved in one on one situations wherein a single skater attempts to score by shooting a puck by a defending goalie into the net. During such confrontations, a skilled shooter can provide various shooting trajectories that will result in movement of the puck toward a particular area of the goal, i.e., upper left corner, lower rignt corner, short side, wide side, etc. The goalie attempts to anticipate that shot and move to protect the particular area of the goal in which the shot is expected. These strategical aspects of hockey are not provided by known games wherein all shots are made at the same level, i.e., the playing surface, and wherein the horizontal trajectory of a fired puck is apparent to the goalie at the time a shot is made.
The object of this invention, therefore, is to provide a hockey game which more clearly re-creates the strategy involved in ice hockey during one to one confrontations between a shooter and a goalie.